


soft sweet pliant

by Areiton



Series: Without Words - Stony Love Confessions [13]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, POV Second Person, POV Steve Rogers, Protective Steve Rogers, Team Dynamics, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:21:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25596460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: It starts like this--He jerks away, when you brush against him, eyes big and startled, a little bit wounded. You pause, because you didn’t mean to scare him, because you sometimes forget that you are so strong, and your grip is too tight, and you don’t want tohurthim.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Without Words - Stony Love Confessions [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1748689
Comments: 4
Kudos: 187





	soft sweet pliant

It starts like this--

He jerks away, when you brush against him, eyes big and startled, a little bit wounded. You pause, because you didn’t mean to scare him, because you sometimes forget that you are so strong, and your grip is too tight, and you don’t want to  _ hurt _ him. 

He doesn’t say anything, and neither do you. You merely smile, and you slip away and you turn it over in your head. 

~*~ 

Tony is touched, is the thing. He has an arm around him at gala’s, a pretty model hanging on him at charity dinners, hands tugging at him for attention and arms pulling at him for affection. There are the hands on him in sparring, Natasha’s hands hard and bruising and Clint’s hands, sharp and teasing, and Bruce’s hands, hesitant, overly large, glancing off and sending him reeling. 

There are gentle touches too--Pepper’s lips glancing off his temple, her hand tucked into the crook of his elbow, her head resting on his shoulder in sleep. There is Rhodey, rough in a way that makes your heart ache because it’s the rough that Bucky was with you, when you were small and the world saw  _ fragile _ , a rough, over-sized affection, brimming up and spilling over and Tony pours himself into it, greedy for more. 

He  _ is  _ touched, is the thing. 

But he reminds you of yourself--

Touch-starved and needy and begging for scraps of affection. 

~*~ 

It starts like this-- 

He jerks away. 

And you reach after him. 

~*~ 

You let your fingers brush over his palm when you pass him coffee, and he runs. 

You touch the small of his back, when you slip past him in the workshop, and he darts to the other side of the room. 

You catch his wrist and tug him gently after you in the hospital visiting children, and he digs his heels in and kneels with a little girl, bald and brilliant and beautiful. 

You reach after him--follow when he runs, move closer in the shop, kneel with him in the hospital. 

And he watches you, wide-eyed and terrified, and you smile, heart aching and hopeful. 

~*~ 

It starts like that--

But it ends like this. 

~*~

You’re alone in the common room, and he is curled in the corner of the couch, ignoring you and the yawning space between you, and you are sketching as a movie plays, and you don’t know really, how you don’t notice, but he moves. 

Closer and closer, until he’s inched across the couch, his head resting on your shoulder, and a tiny sigh fills up the air and the tension bleeds out of him. 

You smile, and you bring your arm around him, gather him close and pet through his hair as he goes soft and sweet pliant against you, and he falls asleep there, held in your arms. 

~*~ 

It’s the first night he falls asleep in your arms, and all the nights after--even when he is naked and panting and sated, sprawled sticky across your sheets and his, even when he falls asleep, bruised and bleeding, even when you crawl into bed shouting and angry, it ends like this--

Your fingers, petting through his hair and his body, soft and sweet pliant against your, soaking in the touch you have always wanted to give him. 


End file.
